"Deem and Pass" keeps Lucy from yanking away the football.

[backscatter712]

You know that something Congress is doing is actually a good thing, when the GOP starts howling and squealing over it.

Deem and Pass is one of those things.

Don't believe the "They'll pass the bill without a vote" bullshit.

What they're doing is voting on both the Senate bill and the reconciliation bill with one vote.

Furthermore, the self-executing rule is designed to ensure that the Senate bill passes only if the reconciliation bill with the fixes in it, also passes.

All of you who were worrying about the Senate pulling a Lucy and yanking the football away by tricking the House into passing the Senate bill, then killing the reconciliation bill?

This is how Pelosi is working to avoid that scenario.

Deem and Pass is the way to go. Don't let the teabaggers tell you otherwise.

[grantcart]

1. good analogy

and 3 weeks from now less than 1% of the US will even remember this particular procedureal move.

[secondwind]

2. Lawrence O'Donnell said today on Morning Joe that this procedure had been used by

Republicans in 2005-2006 THIRTY SIX TIMES.

[Hansel]

10. And Joe knows that because he was in the Congress

You can also tell by the smirk on his face when he's trying to pretend it's something new that he damn well knows it.

[Renew Deal]

3. Doesn't the senate have to vote on the reconciled portion?

Aren't they deeming the Senate bill and passing the changes? Is the Senate bill still passed if the Senate votes against reconciliation?

[harun]

8. Good question.

[backscatter712]

16. I believe the answer is yes.

What the Deem & Pass maneuver does is make the passage of the Senate health care bill by the House conditional on the passage of the reconciliation bill by the Senate.

[IndianaGreen]

4. It may not be constitutional for such a massive bill like HCR

There is case law precedent, Clinton v. City of New York (1998), the line-item veto case.

The Slaughter solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote. The senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill. But this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form. As the Supreme Court wrote in Clinton v. City of New York (1998), a bill containing the "exact text" must be approved by one house; the other house must approve "precisely the same text."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704416904575121532877077328.html

If this Act were valid, it would authorize the President to create a law whose text was not voted on by either House or presented to the President for signature. That may or may not be desirable, but it is surely not a document that may “become a law” pursuant to Article I, §7. If there is to be a new procedure in which the President will play a different role, such change must come through the Article V amendment procedures. Pp. 29—31.

<snip>

The Article I procedures governing statutory enactment were the product of the great debates and compromises that produced the Constitution itself. Familiar historical materials provide abundant support for the conclusion that the power to enact statutes may only “be exercised in accord with a single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered, procedure.” Chadha, 462 U.S., at 951. What has emerged in the present cases, however, are not the product of the “finely wrought” procedure that the Framers designed, but truncated versions of two bills that passed both Houses. Pp. 17—24.

CLINTON v. CITY OF NEW YORK (97-1374)
985 F. Supp. 168, affirmed.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/97-1374.ZS.html

[jefferson_dem]

6. Quoting the WSJ?

What would your fellow Greens say about that?

Your link is broken, by the way.

[IndianaGreen]

11. Link is fixed, thank you. I am also quoting case law.

What saith you?

[jefferson_dem]

17. I'm with Ornstein. Feigned outrage and very obvious red herring effort. FAIL.

Hypocrisy is Another Parliamentary Procedure

Norm Ornstein: "Any veteran observer of Congress is used to the rampant hypocrisy over the use of parliamentary procedures that shifts totally from one side to the other as a majority moves to minority status, and vice versa. But I can't recall a level of feigned indignation nearly as great as what we are seeing now from congressional Republicans and their acolytes at the Wall Street Journal, and on blogs, talk radio, and cable news. It reached a ridiculous level of misinformation and disinformation over the use of reconciliation, and now threatens to top that level over the projected use of a self-executing rule by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."

Read more: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/03/16/hypocrisy_is_another_parliamentary_procedure.html#ixzz0iO4IkmkV

[onenote]

12. the exact text is being approved by both houses

The House is approving the exact text of the Senate bill (that's what happens when the Senate bill, word for word, by reference, is "deemed" approved. No other language is added to the Senate bill or deleted from it. Then the House votes on the reconciliation amendments and if passed, they go to the Senate, and if the exact same provisions are passed by the Senate, then, voila, you have, again, both bodies having agreed to exactly the same language.

[IndianaGreen]

13. Under 'deem it passed' there is only one vote, on the reconciliation

No one will vote on Senate HCR. Their vote on reconciliation will be "deemed" to have been a vote on Senate HCR, and by means of a tear in the time-space continuum, the HCR bill would be considered passed before reconciliation. :crazy:

[onenote]

14. that's right -- there is a vote to "deem" the Senate HCR as passed.

In other words, a vote that deems the exact same language that the Senate passed to have been passed by the House. Its a vote. And its a vote the effect of which is to approve the exact same statutory changes that have been approved by both Houses. If there isn't a majority to approve (by deeming it passed) the Senate HCR, then it doesn't pass. No time space issues.

[IndianaGreen]

15. There is that pesky Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution

which requires each house of Congress to pass a bill, and the President sign it, before it becomes law. Using Clinton v. New York City as precedent, one could argue that the House erred in modifying a bill that had not yet become law.

It will be :popcorn: time to watch the legal wrangling unfold.

[jefferson_dem]

5. Great post.

Thanks for the sanity check.

[jenmito]

7. K&R. Very well put. Makes a little-known procedure easy to understand. n/t

[Oregone]

9. I agree.

I don't like the bill, but doing it this way ensures that just the Senate bill isn't enacted (which would be even worse)

[Clio the Leo]

18. Precisely. NT

[ShortnFiery]

19. No it's a disgusting tactic that we trashed the GOP for using during the Bush Years.

It's legal but be honest, we are becoming what we abhor. :puke: